Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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How the great strike began
Britain’s coalfields were already seething with anger and lightning walkouts when the national strike against pit closures was triggered at Cortonwood colliery in Yorkshire on March 6 1984. PETER LAZENBY reports
A mass rally of striking miners in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, May 1984
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
HILARY CAVE was at the heart of the National Union of Mineworkers administrative apparatus at its headquarters in Sheffield from 1983 to 1988.
As national education officer she ran training courses preparing union activists for what the union knew was coming — an all-out attack by the Tory government of Margaret Thatcher on the miners and their union.
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The General Strike exposed the power of the working class — and the limits of its leadership, writes Dr DYLAN MURPHY
Four decades on, the Wapping dispute stands as both a heroic act of resistance and a decisive moment in the long campaign to break trade union power. Lord JOHN HENDY KC looks back on the events of 1986
MIKE QUILLE applauds an excellent example of cultural democracy: making artworks which are a relevant, integral part of working-class lives
The Home Secretary’s recent letter suggests the Labour government may finally deliver on its nine-year manifesto commitment, writes KATE FLANNERY, but we must move quickly: as recently as 2024 Northumbria police destroyed miners’ strike documents